A CONTENT-ANALYSIS OF BIZARRE ELEMENTS IN DREAMS

A content analysis of bizarreness was carried out in order to separate different dream contents from each other and to report the occurrence of bizarreness across these contents. All expressions describing one of 14 contents (Self Place, Time, Persons, Animals Body Parts, Plants, Objects, Events, Actions, Language, Cognition, Emotions, Sensory Expe riences) in 32 female students' home-based dream diaries were scored. Each element was categorized as Non-bizarre or Bizarre (Incongruous, V ague, Discontinuous). The results show that bizarreness is not randoml y distributed across different dream contents and that distinct types of bizarreness show a dissimilar pattern of distribution. Language and Cognition are the most and Self is the feast Incongruous content. Pla ce is high on both Discontinuity and Vagueness. We suggest that an ade quate baseline for what is bizarre in dreams is the subject's personal waking reality, and for the proportion of bizarreness, the amount of comparable non-bizarre dream elements.